Photographers who wish to take pictures and obtain prints (photographic copies made from negatives) can use either negative film or slide film. It is very difficult to interpret negative film, so a print is usually made of every frame. Often, only a few pictures turn out good enough that prints are desired, and yet the photographer pays for prints of every frame. A roll of slide film can be developed, and either the developed roll placed in a transparent jacket or each frame held in a separate slide mount. Having the frames cut and mounted in slide mounts adds additional cost, and the individual mounted slides from a roll of perhaps 36 pictures, can be more difficult to handle than a single strip of jacketed film. It is possible to obtain a jacketed strip of slide film and hold it up to the light to select frames from which prints are to be made. However, it is difficult to determine the fine details of a picture just by viewing it unaided. A magnifying glass can help, but this is cumbersome and fine details cannot be seen as well as when the frame is projected on a screen that is orders of magnitude larger than the frame.
It would not be convenient to take the strip of film out of the protective jacket and view it by means of a film strip projector, since such viewers would show only half of a picture frame at a time and the projected image would be rotated 90.degree.. Also, it is inconvenient to remove a film strip from a jacket and later replace it in the jacket. In addition, extra effort is required to keep track of a particular film frame which looks good, to make sure the correct frame number is being mounted and/or copied. An apparatus which facilitated the selection of frames from a developed roll of slide film, would reduce the cost of obtaining prints or mounted slides, to thereby enable photographers to take a large number of pictures without being constrained by high costs.